About Me

Known principally for his weekly political columns and his commentaries on radio and television, Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.

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The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.These are based on two very simple principles:Courtesy and Respect.Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.

Followers

Wednesday, 11 October 2017

The Hallelujah Song.

The Only Question That Counts: Have Labour and the Greens got Winston singing that Hallelujah Song?

WHAT’S WINSTON LOOKING FOR in a Labour-Green-NZ First
Government? What must he be convinced of before he tells Bill English and the
44.4 percent of New Zealanders who voted for the National Party that, this
time, he and his party are signing-up with the Left?

First and foremost, he needs to be convinced that such a
government will be a success. Between now and 2020, Winston is looking to
secure an enduring political and historical legacy. That can’t happen if the
government he imposes on New Zealand turns out to be a fractious shambles –
disaster is not the legacy he’s looking for.

So, as he receives Labour’s offers and makes his
counter-offers, he will be watching closely and listening carefully for the
slightest sign, the faintest note, of the Hallelujah Song. Winston needs to
know that Labour’s reach continues to exceed its grasp: that its MPs strive for
something beyond mere political power; that it is still a party of
nation-builders.

He will be studying Jacinda Ardern especially closely. Does
she fully appreciate the sheer weight of the hopes and dreams New Zealanders
have heaped upon her? Is she ready, truly ready, to fulfil them? And, does she
show even the slightest sign of knowing how? Is hers the principal voice among Labour’s
team of negotiators? Or, does she constantly defer to her friend and ally,
Grant Robertson? And does Grant, in turn, look to his mentor and patron, Sir
Michael Cullen, for the right words at the right time? And has Sir Michael ever
known how to sing the Hallelujah Song?

Objection will be raised that Winston’s a hard-nosed old
bugger; and that he’s much more likely to be found singing along with Kenny
Rogers’ “The Gambler”, than attempting to join in some airy-fairy Hallelujah
Song. That will certainly be the case when he’s sitting down with Bill English
and his wise-guys. With National, everything will be hard-nosed and zero-sum.
He is, when all is said and done, of National’s tribe: they know him, and he
knows them.

Winston is fluent in the transactional languages of the
Right. When he’s with National it will all be about things given, things taken;
advantages secured, potential gains foregone. Like Kenny Rogers’ Gambler, he’ll
tote-up his winnings and calculate his losses – but never at the table. NZ
First’s and National’s negotiations will be conducted according to the
bloodless protocols of businessmen exercising due diligence on a proposition
their principals will be asked to either endorse or reject.

But National is Winston’s fall-back position. It is the
party he’ll turn to if, in spite of his best efforts, he can find no trace of
the Hallelujah Song. He knows full-well that a Labour-Green-NZ First Government
will only work if it is animated by a unifying determination to roll-back thirty
years of ignorance, cruelty and greed. He will be looking for the unmistakable
signs of a political army getting ready to march. Not only must he find
evidence of solidarity, but also of that fierce delight which people display
when they find themselves in the company of like minds and kindred spirits.

You Got Me Singing - Leonard Cohen.

If that’s present in the room when he meets with Labour’s
negotiators, then he really has no need to meet with the Greens. If he
encounters a Labour Party charged with the thrill of solidarity and primed for
action, then the Greens will be too – only more so. In a room like that there’s
no need for the brute diction of win and lose, profit and loss. He and his team
will know that NZ First, Labour and the Greens can do this in a way that will allow him to leave politics as an
honoured and beloved statesman.

But, if all he hears in that room is the language of caution
and denial. If all he’s given are countless reasons why things cannot be done.
If all he senses on the other side of the table is a supercilious disdain for
himself and his party, and open contempt for the Greens. Well then, he will
listen politely and walk back sadly to the barren realism of Bill and his
buddies.

In the absence of the Left’s uplifted voices, Winston will
take what he can get from the Right. Better to deal with people who have never
known that such transformational music exists, than be disappointed by
Labour-Green politicians who no longer consider the Hallelujah Song worth
singing.

This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Tuesday, 10 October 2017.

To go with National will be the end of NZF as a political party. Is that the legacy he wants to leave behind? Destroy his own party for political whim? Most of his front benches appear to be Labour people, not Tories.

Asking the impossible I would suggest for Mr Peters to now cobble together any semblance of a legacy. The macinations of recent days will bot produce any lasting legacy or progress.

Cobbling together a "Heath- Robinson" grab-bag of new initiatives is nothing but a re-run of "Think-big" a la Muldoon, and the spectre of Peters purporting to suggest we should now have to embrace whatever is cobbled together is arrogant. But that is Peters. He is playing the same old tune...that is well past its use by date.

With the steady, long term (permanently?) increased national (retirement) wealth ownership and prosperity and security creative NZ Super Fund contributions being resumed, we can now heartily hallelujah and be grateful to common sense having prevailed through the MMP system, regardless of which parties will form the government.

Just about the only music I've ever bought is Cohen. Tape cassette from the Invercargill Dump. Listened to the grandiose gent over and over back then, in a breeze block flat with the only insects around, wetas. But I can't remember the lyrics of that song, as opposed to the always joyfully received sarcasm of 'you take Manhatten, I'll take Berliiiiin'.

The Greens with their 3 -year-MP leader James Shaw are as conservative and thankful as possible.

It does not really matter what Peters does. The problem will be the same. As in the firsr go round with Bolger it is his way or the highway.That is going to emerge shortly welll before any issue with the Greens turn up. THE central problem is in the end unchanged and reminiscent of his mentor one R.D Muldoon.

It is as the late Norman Kirk is reported to have said of Robert Muldoon: " ljustwant to be Prime Minister, Muldoon wants to be the government. .."

A timely and sagacious article and were Michael Cullen to be still involved with this background of establishment expediency and conservatism, then Labour would be on a hiding to nothing. If Annette King has replaced him we can sigh with relief.

The central problem however still remains and you encapsulated it in your last sentence with the Muldoon metaphor of wanting not just to be PM but the Govt.And like the latter day Trump where a hugely inflated ego hiding inadequacy gets in the way of everything, so to does it with Peters.

Loathe though I am to say it I think Jacinda and her team should let Peter's go and say clearly that the Trump personality of Peters doesn't fit with them or the Greens, and that he and National deserve each other in the economic/environmental neo liberal callous mess that will continue. Hard for NZ,let alone the Labour/Greens, but it will then firmly put National & NZ First in the political desert for several terms, which is where they belong, if in fact they last even three years.

As lyrical as ever Chris. An optimist might think Winstone would see the Left, no matter how timid and equivocal, as a better bet than the Right to get his more radical proposals enacted. I don't think he would be expecting to be dealing with revolutionaries - mild reformists would do.

So, it's okay for Winston to ignore the fact that National have a superior party vote and more seats alone than Labour and the Greens combined? If that was the case, the election itself was pointless. The backlash would be huge against NZ First, Kiwis have a sense of fairness, and I think many would be appalled if Winnie puts the losing bloc into power. The regions especially, would be really furious. People like their prime ministers to have the people's mandate. This lies with Bill, obviously. I would be very surprised if the conservative Winston Peters actually goes against the unspoken rule - largest party deserves to be the government!

Nobody wants him so let's have another election. I'm up for it and will start a new party called the True Greens. It will be expressly centre in it's non green policies, and the green ones will all have to be science based and economically positive. These policies will appeal to the majority of NZers but especially the young who these days are mostly apolitical and seek harmony more than division.It's group division they hear from the left these days, so it's a turn off. From the right they just get bored. That is the nature of good government, it's boring. So add some green to it and the young will feel it includes their interests, even though it already does.But it probably will not get to be needed, as National will get about 55%.

And another wild thought since all are permissible right now on what the great leader will do.Perhaps he'll be left screaming 'traitors!' soon.

How about the idea that huge spanner has been thrown into his master plans by secret talks between National and Labour on forming a grand coalition, inc Greens.I have heard a whisper this has occurred. The talks that is, not yet a deal. Yet.

"So, it's okay for Winston to ignore the fact that National have a superior party vote and more seats alone than Labour and the Greens combined? "

Yes it is. I'm sort of sick and tired of giving lessons on MMP to people, but it's the numbers that count there is no legal or moral obligation to give the biggest party the chance to form a government.